


Drawing Again

by Morgana



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Cordelia's idea that Angel take up drawing again</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawing Again

Cordelia was the one who'd gotten him to start drawing again - something about 'releasing his tensions and working out the broodiness through art therapy'. Before that, he hadn't picked up a pencil in over a hundred years, mostly because Angelus loved to draw, and taking anything away from that bastard gave him immense satisfaction. But Cordy had proved insistent, always badgering him until he gave in and began sketching again. 

It started small, really. Cordelia's smile, Wesley's intent stare as he studied a prophecy, Gunn cleaning his axe, but once he saw Darla, it exploded. From that moment on, his hand was almost never still. Laughing or frowning, standing over bodies or in exhausted repletion in his bed... he drew it all, covering pages with her until at last she came to him as though pulled by the power of her image. They made a life that night amid the cold and the rain, and his focus shifted from long blonde hair to a dark cap of downy fuzz.

When he looks back, those first months with Connor seem more like one of his fevered hunger dreams than reality. He'd sketched him time and time again, asleep and awake, in the arms of every member of their little family, from the surrogate mother whose lover he would later become to the wise uncle that would betray them all. Were they really as happy as he drew them, or did it just seem that way in hindsight? He supposed he'd never know. When Wesley had taken his son, he'd broken his pencils and burned everything.

He hadn't thought to want to draw again. And for years afterward, he hadn't. But then one night moonlight slipped through the crack of the curtain and hit his lover's face just right... and his fingers itched to curl around a pencil again. He didn't say anything about it, but he really wasn't that surprised to find a box of good pencils and several pads of heavy paper on the bed when he came out of the shower a few days later. There was no question that he'd accept the gift, but even he'd been surprised at the haste with which he'd ripped the box open, spilling pencils over paper. 

There was a sensuality to drawing that had always appealed to him, the way that something so visual pulled him in and engaged the senses beyond sight. He loved the feel of the pencil in his hand, the smooth paper underneath that lay waiting for him, the sharp scent of charcoal and the soft shush of the quick shading strokes as he worked to bring his drawings to life. When he let himself, he could get lost in sketching until he slid down into a place of peace and quiet, where he could almost feel the demon inside him purr with pleasure. And while he still thought Angelus was a sick, sadistic bastard that could never be allowed out, he found he could no longer begrudge him the joy that came from drawing again.


End file.
